


The Whirligig of Time

by bewareofitalics



Category: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewareofitalics/pseuds/bewareofitalics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that never happened in Illyria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whirligig of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Reconditarmonia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/pseuds/reconditarmonia) for helping me whip this into shape!

 

####  _And so perchance may he be…_

There was a girl on the ship, waterlogged and delirious. The superstitious among the crew would have thrown her back to the sea. Others would have taken her for their own pleasure. Antonio did neither, instead devoting himself to protecting the girl and nursing her back to health.

As soon as she could speak, she was screaming. “Where is my brother? You have found me, have you not found him? Take me to him!”

“Hush, my lady,” said Antonio. “We found none but you. Be thankful your own life is saved.” The girl made no reply. “Where do you live, lady? I will take you home, if it is within my power.”

“No home have I,” said the girl.

“Someplace else I may take you, then.”

“I know of none.”

Antonio sighed. “I must take you somewhere. ‘Twould not do for a woman to stay on board a pirate ship.”

“A pirate ship!” the girl exclaimed. Her pale face grew paler, and she clutched her blanket around her.

“Fear not,” said Antonio, “I am the captain, and shall let no harm come to you.”

“You may bring me to whatever land is nearest. I would not trouble you.”

“That is Illyria, lady.”

“‘Twill serve.”

“Very well.” Antonio looked at the girl, who was staring at her clasped hands. “Will you give me your name, lady? Mine is Antonio.”

The girl waited a moment before replying, “I am called Rosaline.”

“Lady Rosaline,” said Antonio with a respectful bow. “I give to you my cabin for this time. There is food for you, and fresh clothes.” He indicated a bowl and a bundle. “No skirts, I fear, but perhaps I may mend yours.”

“No need,” said the girl, looking thoughtfully at the bundle. “Take no more pains for my sake, though I thank you for what you have done.”

“Very well. I will leave you now, and set our course.”

Before the month was out, a youth in sailor’s clothes arrived at the palace of Duke Orsino. “You are not welcome here, Count Sebastian,” said the duke’s steward before gently slamming the door.

 

* * *

 

####  _O that I served that lady…_

When Viola arrived at Olivia’s gate, the countess took pity on the bedraggled girl. She took her into her home, found her clothes to wear, wept to hear of her lost twin. Soon the two were fast friends, sharing secrets and sorrows.

“Madam, a gentleman of the duke’s has come,” said Maria, three months and some days after Viola’s arrival. “Will you allow him entrance?”

Olivia groaned. “I hoped the duke had abandoned his suit, but it seems his long silence was mere preparation for a new attack. Send him away.”

“He will not go, madam.”

“Dear lady,” said Viola, “may we not hear this messenger? There will be some sport in it, if you have told me true of the duke’s methods of courtship.”

“For a time, perhaps, but such sport will soon spoil.”

“Then we must gather it while it is fresh.”

Olivia smiled. “Very well. Let him approach.” As Maria went off to fetch the messenger, Olivia threw her veil over her face. Viola, giggling a bit, did likewise.

The youth strode in and stopped, looking at the veiled women with some confusion. Then he shrugged and knelt before Viola. “Most sweet lady,” he began.

Viola shrieked.

 

* * *

 

####  _What I am, and what I would…_

Duke Orsino had been a bachelor when Viola’s father spoke of him, but by the time Viola entered his service, the Duchess Olivia graced his court. Even a newcomer could see that the marriage was not a happy one. The duke and duchess were rarely together, and when they were, they showed each other no more affection than polite smiles. The whispers went that Olivia had married to please her father, not herself. Mourning his son and still weak from fever, she could deny him nothing.

Viola pitied the lady even as she envied her. It must be hard to be wed to a man one did not love, she knew, but she could not see how anyone could fail to love Orsino. There was wit and poetry hidden beneath his cynicism and extravagant melancholy, and a vulnerability he showed only to his most trusted friends.

“I loved her so, Cesario,” Orsino said late one night, when the wine was gone and the other courtiers dismissed. “I thought if she were mine, I would live in eternal bliss. Yet see me now! I failed to win her love, and lost mine own.”

“Perhaps not so, my lord,” said Viola. “‘Tis said that love may grow in time, and yours is newly planted.”

Orsino shook his head. “Thou art unschooled in love. Yet am I not so, too? Had I truly known love, should it not be still within my breast? O, boy, we rail on women’s fickleness, but what of our own?” He clapped his hands to Viola’s shoulders, bringing his face close to hers. “What of mine?”

Viola swallowed hard. “Sure, my lord, even the most constant man may sometimes be mistaken.”

“Ay,” breathed Orsino, “mayhap I have been mistaken in many things.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Viola’s.

Kissing Orsino was all Viola had dreamed it would be, and for a moment she could think of nothing else. But then she felt Orsino’s fingers fumbling with the buttons of her doublet, and with a gasp, she pulled away. “Forgive me, my lord,” she said, and fled the room.

She shoved the kiss to the back of her memory. It settled next to the time Olivia had clung to her, weeping for her brother.

The duke said nothing of the kiss the next day, but his eyes followed Viola wherever she went. Avoiding him out of fear and guilt, Viola found herself instead looking at the duchess – and found the duchess looking back. Viola had paid little attention to Olivia before, busy as she was in her role as Orsino’s confidante, but now she could not look away. Her memories shifted, and she remembered the way the duchess’s cheek had felt against her own.

She realized she was staring, and she turned to a window, but not before she saw the duchess smile.

That evening, as Viola supped at the duke’s table, a servant came to summon her to the duchess’s chamber. “My lord?” asked Viola.

“Go to her,” said Orsino, a strange eagerness in his voice. “It may be she hath something of import to ask thee.”

Viola went. “I am at your service, madam,” she said when the door was shut.

“Sweet Cesario,” said Olivia. She sat on the edge of her bed. “My lord hath told me much of thee.”

“Hath he, madam?” asked Viola, keeping her face under strict control.

“Indeed. Thou art a puzzle to him. He hath never known a boy’s form and face to bring him so much pleasure.”

Viola’s face burned, with embarrassment or pleasure of her own she could not say. “If I have offended you, madam, in any way-”

“Offended me?” Olivia laughed lightly. “Nay, thou hast pleased me, as well. I, too, have never known a man I liked so well to look upon.”

“No, madam?”

“No,” said Olivia. She looked up at Viola through her long lashes. “Yet have there been some women nearly so attractive.”

“Madam! I- I know not- I _am_ not-”

“Art thou not?” Olivia stood, and stroked Viola’s smooth cheek. “An thou wouldst, come to my lord’s chamber tonight. Nothing thou canst reveal would please us ill.”

Viola felt the weight of her disguise lift, and with a joyous heart, she kissed Olivia’s hand. “Madam,” she said, “I will.”

 

* * *

 

####  _There is example for’t…_

Olivia felt nothing as she watched the man who had been her suitor walk away with the woman who had been the man she loved. She thought nothing when Feste told her of a letter, heard nothing when he read it aloud in his most amusing style. She saw nothing until Malvolio was dragged before her, his face a mirror of her heart. She opened her ears to him.

He spoke as he had never spoken before, his voice passionate and desperate and alive. He denounced everyone and everything and most of all Olivia herself, pleading for the dignity that had never before betrayed him. He spoke with more truth than Olivia had heard in months.

Without a word, she pulled him to her and kissed him fiercely.

Olivia and Malvolio married in haste, but the proverbial repentance never arrived. Both humbled by their foolishness, they helped pick up the pieces of their shattered images and rebuilt them with the good they saw in each other facing outward. Malvolio found that he really could smile, and Olivia found that his smiles really did become him. Time went on, children came, and all thoughts of humiliation and revenge were forgotten.

And if Olivia’s heart fluttered more at one glance from the duchess than at any of her husband’s caresses, what did it matter?

 

* * *

 

####  _Most provident in peril…_

At first, the twins enjoyed the storm. They danced in the rain and laughed when the sea rose up to join them. But the wind grew wilder, the thunder louder, the lightning closer. Grim-faced sailors herded the passengers below deck. The twins huddled together in their cabin, Viola holding Sebastian’s hair when he retched into a bucket.

The night seemed endless, but the morning broke calm and clear. “We were blown off course,” a sailor told the twins when they emerged, “and some supplies were spoiled, but Jove be praised, the ship split not. We will hull here some little time and replenish our stores. Take comfort, we’ll soon be off again.”

“I thank you,” said Viola. “Come, brother, wilt thou walk?”

Sebastian’s shaky legs took him as far as a railing, and there the twins stopped, looking out on the sea and the sun-drenched isle before them. Another ship, much smaller, was anchored close by. “Pirates, think’st thou?” asked Sebastian, watching the ragtag crew.

“Perhaps,” said Viola.

A man who seemed to be the leader of the pirates, if pirates they were, looked up and gave the twins a mock salute. Sebastian saluted back before Viola could stop him. “I could turn pirate,” he said.

“First must thou steal a stronger stomach,” teased Viola. She took Sebastian’s hand. “We will find some way to live. I swear it.”

Sebastian smiled and laced his fingers with Viola’s. “I have all faith in thee.”

The ship set sail at sunset, leaving Illyria far behind.


End file.
